Manitou to hold marijuana meetings and more

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The Manitou Springs City Council will host a community discussion regarding the regulation of retail-marijuana businesses at 9 a.m. on Oct. 12. Although the council passed a moratorium on recreational marijuana until Dec. 31, members would like to hear from their constituents before making a final decision on opting out or becoming the county marijuana mecca.

In a press release for the event, Mayor Marc Snyder says that if the city supports recreational marijuana, it must do so responsibly.

The event will offer an avenue for the city to clarify regulations and implementation strategies, as well as give residents an additional chance to share their opinion of RMJ, whether in support or opposition.

All that glitters is green

Since the federal government announced that it would not stand in the way of marijuana legalization in Colorado (or Washington), previously wary investors have flocked here, and they're feeling generous.

"This is big, big business," Tripp Keber, owner and managing director of Dixie Elixirs & Edibles, says in a Denver Post interview. Keber, along with roughly 60 members from the ArcView Investor Network, reportedly met at the Denver Athletic Club on Sept. 24 to listen to pitches from cannabis-based businesses.

While the medical-marijuana industry has already created thousands of jobs in the state, investors see exponential growth potential on the retail side, with the Post writing that the industry could create a handful of billionaires in the coming years. Last week's meeting was the largest the group has ever had.

ArcView will reveal the full amount of funds invested Wednesday, Oct. 2. The total is expected to be in the millions.

Put out the fire

A note to hikers who enjoy a little toke on the trail: While possession of small amounts of marijuana is legal on the state level, journeying into national forests with the plant is not.

And since it's obviously federal land, campers are receiving citations for pot possession from park rangers. After looking at federal court data, the Associated Press discovered that between January and July of this year, roughly 135 people were cited in Colorado for marijuana possession on forest land.

"We don't go looking for it, but there are tickets written, and there will continue to be tickets written," said Scott Fitzwilliams, supervisor for the White River National Forest, in an interview with the Aspen Daily News. "We don't go searching for pot smokers in campgrounds — it's usually connected to some other behavioral thing, like people going in and trashing a site."